Cisco Unified Provisioning Manager

Hi Guys
(People using aggregates please see; http://www.ccierants.com/2011/11/cisco-unified-provisioning-manager.html)


So, this is the first time I have ever done a Video blog post, so if it feels rushed and unscripted.. that is because it is! Sorry! I did it as a Video because only a Video could really show how easy Cisco Unified Provisioning Manager can make adding new phones/users/enabling "services" for users with CUCM.

Here are some quick facts:
What: Cisco Unified Provisioning Manager 8.6 is a tool that integrates with your existing CUCM, CUC and CUPs servers to provide a single management pane to easily add users to all three and ensure they are added consistently and accurately.

Essentially it provides templates for line and phone settings to add users to CUCM. So for example, you can create a template called SiteA (As I do in the video) that contains all the settings for SiteA users telephones, lines, voicemail, remote destination profiles and extension mobility profiles and easily add new users with just a few clicks, making changes if you need to.

The provisioning tool takes care of all the little details such as associating the users with their phones, associating the user to the line, updating the primary extension etc. etc. and means you can _very_ rapidly deploy new phones.

It even looks after your number blocks, so you can specify directory numbers for particular sites and it will manage their allocation for you, ensuring they don't overlap, allowing you to reserve some numbers and also showing you an inventory of which are available.

Here is a video showing more:




Higher quality video: http://youtu.be/c6LL-4rZf_4


How: A 90 day trial license is available to make sure it is for you, it's got a list price of 12k for 500 users, so you should half that to get an idea of how much it might cost. I would say it is targeted at quite large organizations who make a lot of add's moves and changes or who have a very complicated CUCM setup.




Caveats: It has a few limitations that I came across such as you cannot use keywords everywhere (keywords like ${FIRSTNAME} and ${EXTENSION} allow you to specify

More Information: I still have not fully explored options such as what about removing services from a user, (i.e. decommissioning a users phone) as I imagine that is quite common task.

If you have had some of your own experience with Cisco Unified Provisioning Manager I would love to hear about it! Leave a comment below